It’s been five months since the euphoria of a Donald Trump rally at the local arena brought optimism to this former Democratic stronghold. The snow from a long winter has begun melting into the rocky soil, and the digital sign in a torn-up parking lot blinks hopefully: “Warm days are coming.”

President Trump has yet to deliver jobs or the repeal of Obamacare. But here, in an area crucial to his unexpected election victory, many residents are more frustrated with what they see as obstruction and a rush to judgment than they are with Trump.

Give him six months to prove himself, said an information technology supervisor. Give him a year, said a service manager. Give him four years, said a retired print shop owner.

President Trump is citing Bill Clinton’s famous sexual harassment battle in his effort to block a California woman’s lawsuit claiming Trump lied about groping her in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.

Problem is, Clinton lost that bid for legal immunity when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1997 that the chief executive is not shielded from responding to a civil suit regarding his private behavior.

The House voted Tuesday to kill landmark privacy restrictions for Internet service providers and sent the bill to the White House, which indicated President Trump would sign it and invalidate the rules before they go into effect.

The measure, approved largely along party lines, repeals tough new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would require broadband companies to get explicit customer permission before using or sharing most of their personal information.

California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.

“It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States' leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump‘s mind, but nowhere else.”

“Yes, there is going to be a counter-movement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat.”

Mar. 28, 2017, 1:29 p.m.

Rescuers are still recovering bodies from a suspected U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The top U.S. general commanding the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said that the U.S.-led coalition was probably responsible for a blast that killed more than 200 people.

"If we did it, and I would say there's at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war and we will transparently report it to you,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad.

He made the comments in response to witness reports that an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition leveled a large apartment block and killed scores of civilians, including women and children, in west Mosul's Jadidah neighborhood on March 17.

President Trump on Tuesday ordered the federal government to retreat from the battle against climate change launched by President Obama, issuing a directive aimed at dismantling the core policies that have made the U.S. a global leader in curbing emissions.

The plan unveiled by Trump reflects an about-face for the U.S. on energy, and it puts into jeopardy the nation’s ability to meet the obligations it agreed to under the global warming pact signed in Paris with 194 other nations. It would shelve the landmark Clean Power Plan that mandates electricity companies reduce their emissions. It seeks to dislodge consideration of climate throughout the federal government, where it has been a factor in every relevant decision in recent years.

"My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," Trump said. "I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job killing regulations."

Mar. 28, 2017, 10:17 a.m.

On one side, Gary Cohn has President Trump's ear promoting free trade policies. On the other, protectionist Peter Navarro directs the newly formed National Trade Council. (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR)

Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment.

After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would send a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China.

But the executive order never even got to the president’s desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trump’s top economic advisor.